The invention relates to machines for producing rods which contain fibrous material, especially for simultaneously producing a plurality of rods which contain fibrous material. Typical examples of such rods are cigarette rods wherein a filler of shredded and/or otherwise comminuted natural, reconstituted and/or artificial tobacco is confined in a tubular wrapper of cigarette paper or the like. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for supplying fibrous material to machines for producing rods, especially for simultaneously producing plural rods, wherein a rod-like filler of fibrous material is confined in a tubular envelope.
The apparatus for supplying fibrous material (shredded tobacco) to a cigarette rod making machine which turns out several cigarette rods (normally two cigarette rods) comprises a distributor wherein the fibrous material is prepared for conversion into plural streams which are thereupon trimmed to be converted into rod-like fillers which are ready for draping into cigarette paper or other suitable wrapping material.
Commonly owned copending patent application Ser. No. 057,783 filed June 3, 1987 by Uwe Heitmann and Peter Brand for "Method of and apparatus for simultaneously making plural tobacco streams", now U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,138 granted Dec. 16, 1989, discloses an apparatus which converts a single stream of fibrous material into two smaller streams each of which is ready for trimming and subsequent draping. A very important prerequisite for simultaneous making of satisfactory plural cigarette rods wherein the fillers consist of trimmed tobacco streams which are obtained as a result of breaking up a larger flow is to ensure that the desirable characteristics (such as the uniformity of mixture of different blends of tobacco, the weight per unit length, the density of the fillers and/or the hardness of the fillers) of one rod will exactly match the respective characteristics of each other rod. This necessitates the provision of an apparatus which is capable of ensuring the making of a homogeneous large flow, i.e., of a flow which can be subdivided into several streams each of which has the same density, hardness and/or other characteristics which are desirable to the smoker and to the manufacturer of cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, filter rod sections and/or other rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry.